Barack Obama continues to frustrates the LGBT community and its supporters by not coming out and endorsing same-sex marriage, despite his approving of civil unions. The question many have is whether he hasn't done so because of a political judgment about the possible costs and benefits involved. In which case, how would it break for the president's campaign to back marriage equality?

Two, Obama seems to be doing everything same-sex marriage advocates want, short of actually endorsing marriage. He helped to overturn the "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT); he ordered the justice department to stop enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma); he came out openly against North Carolina's Amendment 1.

Obama's objection that he himself did not complete the 1996 survey are backed up by the fact that he answered the same survey question two years later as "undecided". Why would Obama have changed his position so quickly?

Was he was already planning two years ahead for a House run in one of the most Democratic, but African American-dominated districts in the country? Did Obama only voice support for same-sex marriage in 1996 to get elected in extremely liberal state senate district, but never really supported it? Or could it be that, as he claims, he never did support same-sex marriage?

Obama's committal to everything but marriage is not that unusual. As I detailed in my commentary that accompanied the Guardian's gay rights interactive, most Americans have very diverse views on same-sex marriage. The vast majority of Americans support same-sex couple hospital visitation rights, health insurance benefits, inheritance rights, and adoption rights. And yet, when posed a question about whether they support either same-sex marriage, or civil unions, or no legal recognition, only about 40% support marriage.

Let's say, for argument's sake, that Obama has been disingenuous about his true support for gay marriage, as his advisers now hint that he will endorse it in the near future. In other words, let's propose that he isn't endorsing marriage for political reasons: is there really a reason for him not to?

An immediate glance at the headline statistics suggests that, in fact, there isn't. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal found that 25% of voters would be more likely to vote for a supporter of gay marriage, while only 20% would be more likely to vote against a candidate; 54% of Americans said a candidate's same-sex marriage views made no difference.

Voters in a Gallup poll ranked social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion as the least important of all the topics likely to come up on the campaign trail. Self-identified Republicans, who are not going to vote for Obama anywhere, were the most likely to say social issues were important.

Some might say, though, that Obama is fearful of alienating religious, minority voters, who were key to his 2008 coalition. Let's also remember the obvious: no Democrat is going to get less than about 90% of black vote, a high proportion of whom have strong religious convictions. Even Michael Dukakis managed to get 89% of this segment of the electorate when losing by 7 points to George HW Bush in 1988.

The question, then, seems to be whether Obama can get the same 95% of black support he did last time. If Obama fears alienating African-American voters by backing same-sex marriage, then he is worrying about 5% of the black vote. Considering that, even with record turnout, black Americans made up only 13% of the electorate, Obama would stand to lose 0.65 of a percentage point from his share of the popular vote. That margin might be closer to 1 point in swing states with a high proportion of African Americans, such as North Carolina and Virginia.

We would then have to assume that these religious black voters who are probably against civil unions and abortion rights, which Obama is already on record as supporting, find Obama's switch on gay marriage to be the key issue they are voting on. Instead, they will either vote for Mitt Romney, the Mormon Republican, or help him win the presidency by abstaining? That would make these voters' behavior unlike that of any other part of the electorate … gimme a break.

What about Latino voters? Most Latinos who are against same-sex marriage are either not citizens or are not registered to vote. Among Latinos who voted in either 2008 or 2010, 65% support same-sex marriage. That percentage is, for statistical purposes, virtually indistinguishable from the 67% of Latinos who voted for Obama in 2008, according to exit polls.

For any difference in Obama's vote share, you would have to believe that somehow, there are a ton of pro-Obama, anti-gay marriage Latino voters who would switch their vote, and that they are a larger share than the anti-Obama, pro-gay marriage Latino voters who would switch their vote. That seems quite unlikely. And remember, Latinos still only make up 9% of the voting population, so any small differences would be even more negligible.

The truth is that when you look at the numbers, there just really isn't anything to suggest that support for gay marriage would be a "killer" electoral liability for Obama. In general, Americans simply don't vote on it as a single issue, and the edges of Obama's coalition are unlikely to be trimmed because he voices support for it.

If Obama, however, is against same-sex marriage for reasons of personal, moral conscience, then I leave it to you to tell him what to do. But if the president really is for same-sex marriage but doesn't voice that support for fear of possible electoral repercussions, he should just get over it.